Are men and women really suited to living together under the same roof? After years of doing just that, I don’t really think so. Helena Bonham-Carter and Tim Burton have got the right idea – be a couple but live separately.

I always say to my partner that when we’re rich, we’re going to get 2 separate abodes built that are joined at the bedroom. He can live in his half and make as much mess as he wants. Mess that I don’t have to live in; don’t have to see; don’t have to care about; and, most importantly, don’t have to clean up.

He uses our chairs as his wardrobe. The area under the dining table for his boots and shoes. The kitchen bench as a spot for his scrap bits of paper, his unopened mail, his loose change, his glasses, sunglasses, iPod, keys. If someone comes over, I often have to move stuff so they can sit down. He has an entire room of his own to do with what he pleases, yet he still uses the whole house as his dumping ground. It’s as if he hates to see an empty space.

He leaves food crumbs on the carpet. He treads dirt and grass clippings inside. He uses the kitchen sink to wash stuff (not clothes, just man-stuff), that he should be using the laundry sink for. He gets drops of water everywhere, steps in it then leaves a trail of dirty dots all over the floor.

Not even gonna mention the toilet.

He never, ever cleans up after himself. If he gets something out of a cupboard, it stays out. He’s like a child who leaves a trail of toys behind him and then never retraces his steps to put anything away. He must have never had to do it when he was young.

He’s got 2 sisters and a brother. Whilst the girls were being trained in the way of the domestic slave, he and his brother were free to do whatever they wanted. Grrrrr. Drives me mad. Now I have to pay for his parents’ sexism.

I’m a neat person. All my stuff is in appropriate places. I get so very tired of cleaning up after him but if I didn’t we’d be on the next episode of ‘Hoarders’. I like space and room. I hate clutter and things in front of windows. I’m not a shopper so I don’t buy things just for the sake of having them.

The irony is, his parents are hoarders and it drove him mad! He resented how every space in their house got taken over by crap. They had a billiard table which they managed to use for a few weeks before it got used as a storage area for old newspapers and pot plants. That table continues to serve as a final resting place for all manner of unneeded things.

Yet he can’t help himself. No amount of begging and pleading from me over the years has seen him clean up his act. It’s just not a focus in his life. Mess simply doesn’t register. It’s as if he really can’t see it. In fact, he sometimes seemed surprised when I finally crack and demand, yes demand, that he put his stuff away. He gets quite affronted! For him, placing his stuff anywhere that is convenient for him to get at is logical and reasonable. He doesn’t comprehend that it’s actually inconsiderate.

He doesn’t even cook to make up for his lack of domestic pride!

He’s an intelligent man. He’s thoughtful in many ways. We love each other. This is why we still share our lives. But I’d be more than happy to continue that sharing from our own separate wings.

Blogging every day has made me realise that unless I’m stirred up by something, I’ve actually got nothing to say! Is this how everyone is? Do we have to have drama to provoke us into action; to keep us stimulated and engaged?

It would certainly help explain the success of reality TV shows and why the producers insist on making every tiny thing an over-blown drama. “She used my hairbrush.” “That bitch. Let’s go and rip her hair out.”

Clearly the producers understand what ‘activates’ people. These shows and their petty conflicts drive me insane. They irritate me to the point of despair and murderous inclinations. I can’t even watch the adverts without yelling at the TV.

But right there, the show has triggered my brain into a highly excited state. Moments before I could have been half-asleep. Suddenly I’m alert and bright-eyed and thinking of all the things I’d say to those people if I were there. I’m ranting and raving in an articulate, sharp-minded, energised way.

My irritation makes me creative. It makes me want to write great tomes on everything that’s wrong with the world and the people in it. Adverts also have the same effect.

We’re continually encouraged to be nice and kind and peaceful. I used to think that would be the best thing to happen to us all. I think now, though, that we need something to rage against.

The best quotes that we all so love to share around Facebook were said by someone who was countering something that annoyed them.

Some of the greatest art and the greatest changes we have seen in the world were created from the greatest darkness so maybe it’s not a bad thing to have something to arc up about. After all, an irritated oyster creates a pearl.

I’m sitting here wondering what I’m going to blog about and my brain couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss. It’s not interested in providing me with any material. It’s making no effort to be funny or clever or insightful. It just wants to sit quietly and get all meditative.

Yesterday I blogged about actors and rock stars being spoilt brats and after I’d posted it, I was thinking about other stuff I could have added.

In September 2013, Rihanna came to Australia for a concert tour. Her first Australian concert was in Perth on the 24th, then in Adelaide on the 26th.

She’d managed to piss off her Perth fans by rocking up forty minutes late, but that was nothing compared to how she treated her Adelaide fans. My hairdresser went and she told me Rihanna was nearly an hour and a half late and when she finally decided to put in an appearance she staggered on stage, drunk. (Friends of friends who had backstage passes said it took 4 people to drag her out of the limo. She was kicking and screaming and refusing to budge!)

Naturally enough, the audience were pretty peeved with her so they booed and instead of apologising or explaining, she yelled at them, “Do you know how long it takes to get to this fucking country.”

Gee, so sorry to inconvenience you. It must have been tough in first-class Rihanna. Or maybe you did it harder in a private jet? And didn’t you stop off in the Philippines first for one concert on the 19th? That’s not that far away. Less than a seven hour flight. And five days off between gigs is pretty cruisey.

Spoilt brat!

Anyway …

She got started and for about the first 15 minutes her back-up singers did all the work. After running off-stage and puking, she came back and finally bothered to do her job.

Most of the people in that audience would have had to work a good 8 hours or more to be able to afford a ticket to see her perform for about 2 hours. Rihanna, on the other hand, collected hundreds of thousands of dollars for one-quarter of an average day’s work.

Why was she drunk? Why was she late? Why was she so full of contempt for her fans?

If us average Joe’s rocked up to work drunk, we’d be fired. But people like Rihanna don’t get fired. They just use the old, ‘I’m an artist’ excuse for bad behaviour. They have people who gloss things over for them. People who clean up their messes. And if all else fails, a quick stint in rehab gets people back on-side.

By the end of the concert, according to news reports, she was already forgiven. No wonder she doesn’t give a shit and will just be late and drunk again. Fans will put up with anything. They’ll still buy her records and see her in concert. The money will continue to flow in.

Rihanna’s one of the lucky ones. She’s living her dreams. She’s made it. There are thousands of people in the world who would dearly love just a small piece of what Rihanna and her ilk have. So many people strive to fulfil their artistic dreams and never do. They take rejection after rejection, knock after knock.

Why does success come to some, and not others? And why to those who end up soaking themselves in booze and snorting or injecting half of Columbia’s drug crops?

When you’re an artist who dreams of working in a field that nurtures your soul, and that dream continually eludes you, it seems unfair to witness those who have achieved their ambitions treat it so glibly.

It is a big deal to be successful in your chosen field – artistic or otherwise. And to take it for granted is, to my mind, an insult to everyone out there who hasn’t been so blessed.

Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in his bathroom with a needle in his arm.

Why?

Why would he need to be a drug addict? Was he deeply unhappy? Was his life so terrible that he just wanted to get away from it; to escape to some place where everything was so much better than what he was living? Was every moment agony?

He was an A-list, Oscar-winning, working actor who was highly regarded by his peers. He had a young family. He was one of the lucky few to be doing what he loved and getting paid handsomely for it. I bet he owned real estate. Right there he’s already better off than 80% of the population.

Sometimes I think that actors and rock stars are spoilt brats who have it too easy. Everything they want and desire is at their fingertips. They have an endless entourage of people willing to do their bidding and accommodate their every whim. They forget that a much harder life exists beyond their protected, molly-coddled ones, and that their drug and alcohol abuse just makes them look over-indulged. And way too rich.

They need to work a shit job for minimum wage. They need to drag their sorry arses out of bed every morning when they’re tired and unmotivated, and get themselves to a job they hate and that bores them, but one they have no choice but to do because they need to survive. And one which, at the end of the week, provides them with just enough money to pay a small portion off their 30 year mortgage or, worse, their rent.

They need to have four weeks holiday a year and have to save like a demon for economy-class airfares just so they can go somewhere to make them feel as if their life isn’t one long drudge.

They need to feel the stress of not being able to pay their electricity bill, or the fear of their rental property being whipped out from under them.

They need to count their pennies at the supermarket and forego the fresh salmon for tinned.

They need to spend their weekends washing, shopping, cooking and cleaning, in between running the kids to sport and trying to fit in 5 minutes for themselves.

The average person is probably far more stressed and unhappy than they are.

And if they are stressed and unhappy – go to counselling.

Everything is done for big-name stars so maybe they drink and do drugs because they’re bored out of their heads?

I don’t know but, whatever their reasons, it’s a huge pity their addictions of choice are so destructive and oftentimes fatal.